What a Community Plan Looks Like

A common structure for a community plan is as follows:

1. Introduction
2. Description of the development of the community plan,
3. Background information such as existing reports and previous engagement,
4. Community profile raising issues and trends,
5. Community assets,
6. Vision or preferred future,
7. Description of opportunities, challenges, strategies and actions under themes and/or topics,
8. Description of opportunities, challenges, strategies and actions for geographic communities,
9. Description of implementation arrangements,
10. Monitoring and evaluation arrangements,
11. Appendices such as a list of people and organisations involved in the process.

Councils must meet the requirements for community planning but there is considerable flexibility is exactly what is included in a plan document. The above list is a guide only. A plan may not include all these sections or may include others.

Often two versions of a plan are produced - a detailed version mostly for council and other agency use, and a much shorter summary version for distribution in the community.